


Restless Nights

by aravenwood



Series: Bad Things Happen Bingo '18-20 [5]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Bad Things Happen Bingo, Beauregard Lionett & Caleb Widogast Friendship, Beauregard Lionett Has Issues, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hurt Caleb Widogast, Nightmares
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-23
Updated: 2020-08-23
Packaged: 2021-03-06 22:21:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 835
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26066410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aravenwood/pseuds/aravenwood
Summary: Beau has a nightmare and Caleb tries to help. It doesn't end well for either of them.Written for the Bad Things Happen Bingo prompt "accidentally hurt by friend".
Relationships: Beauregard Lionett & Caleb Widogast
Series: Bad Things Happen Bingo '18-20 [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1892221
Comments: 6
Kudos: 85





	Restless Nights

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! Recently I have developed a real love for Beau. Well I've liked her for a while but I've only recently started to be really invested in her as a character. I love her relationship with Caleb and I wanted to push both of them a little bit because I'm mean to the characters I love.
> 
> Enjoy!

In all the time that Caleb has known her, Beau has been the type of person to sleep like the dead. She sprawls on her stomach, one arm under her head as a pillow and the other resting atop her staff. Most nights she won’t even stir, except to wiggle a little closer to Yasha if she happens to be there. Unlike Fjord she doesn’t mumble in her sleep. Unlike Caleb she doesn’t thrash and writhe and beg for his life. She’s still and silent, a sleep Caleb finds himself envying after particularly rough nights.

Tonight is an exception. She’s curled on her side, knees drawn up and her fists clenched. Her eyes dart around beneath her eyelids and every now again she’ll mumble, “no,” and try to bury her face in the ground. She sounds more afraid than Caleb has ever heard her, her face scrunched and her breathing rapid. He wonders absently if this is what he likes during his own nightmares. At least she isn’t screaming like he does.

“No,” she says again, her voice louder this time and full of cracks. Her shoulders jerk suddenly and she draws her knees in closer to her chest. She looks so young that Caleb’s stomach sinks. He thinks of all the times she has protected him, all the times she’s helped him on his bad days.

He can’t leave her to suffer alone.

Careful not to wake the others, he half-crawls across the campsite to where Beau is and pauses a foot or so away. “Beauregard?” he calls softly. When she doesn’t stir and only whimpers, he tries again, a little louder. There’s still no response. Caleb sighs and takes a deep breath, in through his nose and out through his mouth. He takes another, and another, then very slowly places a hand on Beau’s shoulder. “Beauregard, please wake up,” he calls and gives her a gentle shake.

She moves so fast he doesn’t have time to react as she sits bolt upright and wraps her hands around his throat, throwing all her weight onto him to shove him to the ground. Her knees are planted on either side of his ribs and her hands are around his neck, squeezing. Her eyes are open but wild and vacant. Whoever she’s seeing, she isn’t about to let them go.

Caleb latches onto her wrists and pushes, pulls, even claws at them to get her attention. “Beau, bitte,” he manages to choke out, his voice so weak that she doesn’t seem to hear. He tries again but if anything, her hands seem to tighten. Black spots begin to cloud his vision, his chest burns from the lack of air.

He barely thinks before summoning flames to his fingertips and pressing them against Beau’s wrist.

The hands disappear with a pained scream and Caleb quickly curls himself into a ball to protect his throat as he coughs and splutters, gasping in as much air as his lungs can take. Through the ringing in his ears, he can hear the others, suddenly awake and confused. He hears Beau, cursing from the pain.

“Caleb?”

He keeps coughing, one hand clutching his chest while the other is buried in his hair. Someone reaches out to touch him but he flinches away from them as soon as their fingertips brush his back. His body is still on high alert, shivering with shock and adrenaline.

“Oh fuck. Fuck!” Beau screams. He hopes he didn’t seriously hurt her, hopes that she won’t take her anger out on him even though he’s the one who did it.

Her voice is softer when she speaks again, full of so much self-loathing that he feels sick again. “I’m sorry, Caleb. I…I don’t…” She drifts off with a sigh, and he just barely catches her footsteps growing softer as she walks away.

“Beauregard!” he calls out between coughs, forcing himself to uncurl and his eyes to focus on the retreating figure. She pauses but doesn’t turn around. “It was a nightmare. You did not know it was me, ja?”

“Ja,” she says softly. “But I shouldn’t have-.”

“You did not know it was me. You were protecting yourself. All is forgiven,” Caleb says, even as his voice wavers and weakens. Out of the corner of his eye he sees Jester moving towards him, planting a hand on his shoulder – he forces himself not to flinch – and a moment later the pain is gone. He nods his thanks.

Beau turns around hesitantly. “I could have killed you.”

“But you did not. And I have had far worse reactions from my nightmares and you do not hate me for them.” Images of fireballs shot from his hands, crashing into trees mere inches from the group.

“No, but-.”

“All is forgiven, Beauregard. Now, I believe it is your turn for watch, ja?”

If she purposefully positions herself to keep Fjord and Molly between herself and Caleb when she settles down to take watch, no one says anything about it.


End file.
